The bliss of ignorance: count your blessings

I wish I were fortunate enough to have been raised to be ignorant. I wish my parents would have afforded me the choice of indoctrination over intellectualization. Unfortunately for me, and possibly consequently for you, I was raised to use my brain. God gave it, so using it can’t really be a sin. Of course, there is very likely a verse that, when taken out of context, but still used literally, states the brain is sinful. I know many people like their Bibles "black and white." After all, those red letters get awful pesky in their conciliatory nature.

Maybe it wasn’t specifically how I was raised. Maybe part of it was attending decent-sized public schools all of my life. Maybe the necessity in my mind of defending my beliefs to live faithfully to them is what molded me. No matter where it comes from, I do not retain the option of just listening to what someone says and taking it as expertise or truth on the basis of a degree, a name, or a title. I need at least a logical, well thought-out explanation—something that cannot be beaten with flimsy arguments or the hotter temper.

Alas, it is true: Ignorance is bliss! Oh, to be happy. Let me prove my statement. Look around yourself, just look around yourself. I don’t only mean this campus either; I request that you look to this city, to this state, to this country, to this continent, and yes, I dare to say: Look at this world. Could it be that a nineteen year-old first-year student at EMU really thinks that the majority of humans maintaining happiness are ignorant? Perhaps, but more importantly, they maintain ignorance.

I came to college expecting intellectual challenge and conversation around every corner. Isn’t that what the catalog proposes and insinuates? All the pictures of kids around trees talking—something tells me EMU wasn’t suggesting they were talking about what parties they were "hitting up" the upcoming weekend. Rather, EMU, and the silent majority of the student body, tends to propose that things stay how they are, that no progression occurs, and that advancement stays stagnate. Loren Swartzendruber’s call to "treat all persons with dignity and respect" is met with excitement as well as anxiety.

When opportunities such as the meeting in Lehman Auditorium represent themselves, we need to be willing to speak up. Our opinions are never dumb and are always necessary. Even if they end up being inaccurate, the fact that they are brought up disallows others to run off with completely inaccurate ideas. Discussion cannot happen amongst the few or it loses its greatest asset: originality.

I yearn for the day when students here are able to recognize that they can respect their elders and at the same time disagree with them. We young people have the capacity for wisdom and accuracy just as much as anyone. Age and wisdom are not symbiotic. I would rather challenge that age, to a point, is parasitic to true wisdom. Their wisdom is secure. They are wise now for the times they grew up in. But they do not live in those times. They live in today, the times we are growing up in. There is nothing special about the 20/20 of hindsight; even fools can attain that.

This may be bold, but I’d bet the professors here would appreciate the raising of more hands, even more if it were for something other than the book answer. It doesn’t take a college kid to fill out a "fill in the blanks" when they read the chapter that provided the answer key the previous night. Whoopty Doo! You got another A+. Did you learn anything tough? Were you intellectually challenged? Or are we all just mentally challenged, straining to find the answers in the back of the book? Close the book and raise the hand. The book doesn’t change, only the mind can.